


out of the dark and into the light

by saunatonttu



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blue Lions Route spoilers, M/M, Post Timeskip, Pre-Relationship, reconnecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 10:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20080927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu
Summary: "Why are you still here?" Dimitri asked him, and Felix tried to find a dishonest answer to it. Sadly, Dimitri still saw through him.





	out of the dark and into the light

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Blue Lions route, though they're vague at best. Some supports are also vaguely referenced.

“Why are you still here?”

The question came out unexpectedly, without any preamble, and so Felix nearly choked on the meat in the spoonful of stew he had just shoved into his mouth. He didn’t need to look to his side to know it was Dimitri that had spoken – there were very few others in the dining hall this late in the night, not to mention that the voice was undoubtedly the prince’s, though not as harsh and gruff as it had been still mere weeks ago.

“Eating. Have you lost sight from _both _eyes now?” It was a low blow, really, but it wouldn’t be the first time Felix had resorted to those to hide something from another. He didn’t turn to look at the man beside him, whose face had only recently gotten more bearable to look at, even if just slightly.

His rude remark only made Dimitri huff under his breath, a weak laugh that nearly had Felix’s hand stop entirely.

Now that was a sound he hadn’t heard in a while, and it sent tension straight through his spine as he glanced to his side to see Dimitri smiling faintly down at the hands clasped before him on the table. From this side, he could only see the covered eye, but Felix knew that face. For someone bigger and wider than most if not all men in the army, Dimitri looked _small_ now. Hesitant.

_Pathetic_, Felix might call it, but honestly? This was the most genuine he’d seen Dimitri be in a long while. The closest to the friend he remembered from childhood.

“You know that wasn’t what I meant, Felix,” Dimitri said then, lips barely moving with the mumbled words, a yawn threatening to force itself way past his mouth. Felix turned his attention back to his stew. He _wouldn’t_ be caught staring, not for the life of him.

But now he was entirely too conscious of the man beside him. Felix’s brows knitted together, a scowl pulling at his mouth. He’d gone on five years without so much as a glimpse of his once-friend, but he had had time to readjust, even though that _boar_ hadn’t much bothered to spend time with his army through and between the first few battles.

That hadn’t been _Dimitri_, though, Felix acknowledged. Not _fully_ – at best, only a half-life of Dimitri, stripped of his humanity and foolish notions of nobility and virtue. Like the beast Felix had accused him of being before.

“Well,” Felix said after swallowing down more stew. It’d been Dedue’s turn in the kitchen tonight, that much was clear. Typical Faerghus cuisine, yet better than most grub Felix had had the past five years. “I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you.”

The silence that followed lasted long enough for Felix to think Dimitri wasn’t going to clarify himself, but then he cleared his throat. “I know why you’re agreeing to follow me now,” he said, and pain stumbled into the why and _now_, “but why… why did you stay before, Felix? I hardly gave you any reason to.”

Felix wished he hadn’t come to eat, after all, if it meant he had to have this kind of conversation. He liked being the one confronting things, not _being_ confronted. It was late, he had returned from a scouting mission, and Dimitri was there, looking more like himself than he had in a _long_ while, asking questions that Felix didn’t wish to consider or give answers to.

“You really didn’t,” he said. The spoon clinked against the side of his plate as it went down a little too harshly, and Felix didn’t lift it again as he narrowed his eyes at the stew. Answering Dimitri would be far too close to honesty than what Felix liked, and the sense of it burned in his chest like an acute heartburn. “My old man sent me looking for you, like Sylvain’s sent him. I know damned well my responsibility. Got to make sure you don’t get yourself killed with your recklessness and all that.”

Dimitri turned to look at him fully, a grim look in the only eye that could see. It wasn’t as clouded as the day Felix had reunited with him, not as murky with years-long hatred, but something in the blue eye unnerved him, like Dimitri was going to say something incredibly idiotic right then.

But instead of saying anything, Dimitri stayed hesitant, hands clasped tightly like he was afraid. OF what? Of him? Felix nearly snorted derisively. As though he had anything to fear from him asides from sharp, anger-laced words.

“Responsibility,” Dimitri finally settled for, “only takes you so far. You have never been the type to mindlessly follow others. You make your own decisions, and if they align with others’, then so be it.” The blue eye focused on him, and Felix saw more life in it than he ever had back in their academy days. (Even if everyone else was fooled by that boar’s kind exterior.) “So what decision did you make that kept you here this long?”

The dining hall was quiet, so Dimitri’s soft-spoken words were still much too audible for Felix’s taste.

“Unsupervised beast,” he said, stubbornly not looking away from Dimitri’s face even if he wanted to, “is more dangerous than a caged one.”

Both to themselves and the world.

Felix kept _those_ words to himself, however. He had more sense than to hand over how he felt to Dimitri so easily; he’d made a fool of himself plenty of times before as it was.

Even so, Dimitri’s eye lit up with understanding, a slow smile reaching it from his lips. Damn it all, but Felix’s heart squeezed at the sight. “You really are much kinder a friend than what I deserve, Felix.”

“Stop right there,” Felix said, a little too high and loud. “I haven’t said anything that—”

“You told me _prove it with my actions_ that what I told you is the truth,” Dimitri interjected firmly, and a quick glance down showed Dimitri’s hands had finally eased off their hold of one another. “It’s only natural that your true feelings would show that way, too.”

“_Enough_,” Felix said. He was in his early twenties, he _wasn’t_ supposed to get so flustered over his friend’s observations of him. “If you’re finished, go sleep or whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing right now.”

The eyebags under Dimitri’s eye hadn’t vanished, though they didn’t look quite as dark as before, but much more sleep was required to fix the damage that had been done. Felix eyed at the bowl Dimitri had pushed away, still half-full with stew. “Don’t let that go to waste, you fool.”

Dimitri’s mouth twitched once more. “You’re really doing a rather poor job at pretending you do not care.”

Felix scowled at the mirth on his face, subtle as it may be. His grip on his spoon tightened, and Dimitri’s eye dropped down to it as if concerned Felix might fling it at him. Wouldn’t be the first time Felix had done so.

“Food,” Felix said, twirling the spoon between his calloused fingers until he pointed it at Dimitri, much like he would do with a sword. “In your mouth. Now.”

It was quite ridiculous, and anyone witnessing the sight would most likely have been laughing had it not been Felix and Dimitri, both very intimidating in different ways. But Dimitri had no such qualms about containing his snort, and his smile widened.

The resemblance to the childhood friend he remembered was so striking that Felix had to swallow to be able to breathe again. It wasn’t the first time he recognized Dimitri on this battle- and life-worn face, but each time he felt like he had been trampled on by a rather violent horse… or like he had fallen off one, if the dizziness was anything to go by.

“I remember,” Dimitri said as he pulled the bowl back towards himself, “you telling me to eat, or else I’d faint. Here, years ago.”

The nostalgic tone didn’t catch him off guard this time, but Felix tensed up either way. “Why do you remember such useless things, but not eating itself?”

Felix grimaced as soon as the question had left him. “Never mind, that one has an obvious answer.”

He and Dimitri had shared a fair share of meals after the tragedy that had sent his friend off into the nine years of torment he had only now begun to take steps to separate from. Felix remembered the first one in particular, after the old man had taken him to the capital to check up on the prince, now dubbed as the sole survivor of the tragedy. (There was Dedue, as well, though few people acknowledged him as a person.)

It had been a terrible meal: Dimitri silent and barely touching his food, looking like he might either cry on the spot or that he had cried so much there were no tears left to weep, while Felix himself was terse and stiff as his father attempted gentle conversation to coax Dimitri out of his stupor.

The memory still brought a sour taste into Felix’s mouth.

Later, when Dimitri had crawled into his bed as though they were both still children and Felix’s father couldn’t supervise them, he had confided to him that he had no sense of taste anymore.

“It all tastes the same,” 13-year-old Dimitri had whispered to him through the darkness between them. “That was my favourite, and yet I…”

Felix couldn’t have seen the face Dimitri made then, but he sure remembered the exact tone he had said those words with, and even now it made his jaw clench tightly. Back then he hadn’t wanted anything more than to…

Dimitri’s clearing of his throat pulled Felix back to the present and to realize he was still clutching onto the spoon with far too much force than necessary. But, unlike the boar beside him, he didn’t have the sheer physical strength to bend them at will quite so easily.

“You know,” Dimitri began conversationally, “Flayn recently cooked for me. My tongue went numb after the first spoonful, but it was, without a doubt, the sweetest thing I have ever tasted in my entire life.”

Felix blinked at that, surprise obviously on his face since Dimitri chuckled to himself. “Huh. The sweetest, you say.”

“Just for that first bite,” Dimitri said, “but I recall it quite vividly.”

“I suppose if anyone’s cooking could scare your taste buds into action,” Felix mused, “it would be hers.”

The snort that his words accomplished brought a smile to Felix’s face as well, if only for a short moment before he caught himself and schooled himself back to the neutral scowl he was used to wearing. Dimitri felt no obligation to do the same, and he smiled openly at Felix.

It wasn’t like the smiles back at the academy that felt too fake and too practiced, nor was it the manic smiles he had seen on the boar just some weeks and months previously.

It was Dimitri stripped off all the baggage he had carried with him: gone were the ghosts, gone were both the murderous and suicidal intentions. It was just _Dimitri_, now.

Felix allowed himself to relax, both his thoughts and his grip on the spoon. The silence between them grew lighter than what it had been for years, and Felix resumed eating after glancing to see that Dimitri did the same.

A lot had been lost along the way – _too_ much – but something had been regained as well.

For that, Felix found himself relieved, if not a little bitter at what had to be lost to the restoration of Dimitri’s humanity.

“Felix,” Dimitri was the one to break the silence only a few minutes later, voice soft and sincere. His eye was trained on him when Felix turned to look with raised eyebrows, and his mouth had slid back into seriousness. “Thank you – truly. After everything I have done, everything I _was_, I do not deserve the trust you and the others are placing on me. But—”

“I told you before,” Felix interjected, if only because he couldn’t stand hearing Dimitri repeat himself. “Show it with you actions, you moron.”

Pursing his lips, Felix contemplated whether it was worth to say the next words. In the end, he gave in just this once, and said, “I won’t leave your side until you do, Dimitri.”

Dimitri again stared at him as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but soon a soft smile touched his lips once more. Solemnly, he murmured, “That may well take a long while, you know.”

“Been stuck with you since childhood,” Felix said. “A few more years won’t hurt much.”

“Years,” Dimitri repeated the word, amusement ringing through it. While the look of being haunted by the past had yet to vanish completely, it was a step for the better. “You truly have no faith in me, do you?”

“Not in the slightest,” Felix said flatly, but a faint smile tugged at the corner of his own mouth. “Work hard to convince me you’ve redeemed yourself. I’ll be around to watch it all.”

A promise poorly disguised as a threat, like many of theirs were.

Felix had every intention of keeping his part of the bargain. As they continued talking quietly in the nighttime monastery, they both could almost _feel_ something being repaired little by little. Something both of them had missed in its absence over the years.

There was hope for them yet.


End file.
